Full-time: Tottenham 0-1 Arsenal

Nothing more to report here. Well Spurs dominated possession but the repeatedly failed to do anything with it and were punished for that. Arsenal defended superbly and on the balance of play, they probably deserved to win. Thanks for all the comment, tweets and emails. Bye!

Updated at 5.53pm GMT

5.49pm GMT

90 + 3 mins Some housekeeping. Rose has just gone in the book for a foul on Giroud.

5.49pm GMT

90 + 2 mins A late corner to Spurs. Can they so something with it? Can they, huh mister? Eh, no. It is sent it, flicked on but then Szczesny jumps and catches it with ease.

5.47pm GMT

90 mins There is four more minutes for Spurs to find a goal.

5.46pm GMT

89 mins A long diagonal balls finds Adebayor on the edge of the box. He cuts inside and slips a shot through a few Arsenal defenders. It looks to be going to the corner but Szczesny does well to dive and save it as his view must have been obscured by his defenders.

Updated at 5.46pm GMT

5.44pm GMT

88 mins Meanwhile on the sideline, Sherwood is mouthing off at Sagna for some reason. This was after he threw the ball at the Arsenal full-back.

5.42pm GMT

86 mins Robin has an answer to my previous question about the late introduction of Soldado. “Because the manager hasn’t a clue.”

5.41pm GMT

85 mins Kaboul is playing as a right winger at the moment. It is having the effect you would expect from a big central defender playing in such a position. Meanwhile, off goes Oxlade-Chamberlain and on comes Vermaelen.

5.39pm GMT

82 mins Eriksen is replaced by Soldado. The fans do not like that – the Eriksen coming off part not the Soldado coming on part – and the booooooooos rain down. Question: if your team need a goal why wait till 8 minutes to go to bring on a striker?

5.36pm GMT

80 mins This is getting scrappy now. Flamini is the latest to be booked for a hefty tackle on Eriksen.

5.35pm GMT

77 mins Podolski off, Monreal on. Meanwhile, Lloris has just pulled off a very good reaction save from a Mertesacker effort inside the box.

5.33pm GMT

76 mins Arsenal play some tiki-taka wide on the left but Vertonghen brings an end to that with a studs up challenge on Cazorla. He gets a yellow card and Arsenal get as free-kick. Arteta sends it to the back post where Vertonghen wrestles Koscielny to the ground and yet does not give away a penalty. The ball goes out for a goalkick.

72 mins Arsenal get a free-kick on the half-way line and with it a break and some relief from the relentless Tottenham attack. Arteta lumps it down the right and they soon get another one when Rose takes down Sagna. This one is much closer to the goal and Arteta will aim for the box this time. This he does but good defending from Sigurdsson sees to it.

5.26pm GMT

70 mins “To be fair that [Rosicky] goal was scored against a valiant but hopeless USA side” says D McCusker. “Today’s however was scored against a multi million pound squad capable of sweeping teams aside and crushing lesser sides such as Hull, WBA, West Ham, Man Utd, Newcastle ... Actually I might need to rethink this.”

5.25pm GMT

68 mins Sandro is replaced by Paulinho and Chadli is replaced by Sigurdsson. As for Arsenal, Rosicky is taken off for Flamini.

5.24pm GMT

66 mins Corner to Spurs. Eriksen whips it in and it comes to Bentaleb on the edge of the area. His shot goes out for another corner. Spurs do nowt with that one either.

5.22pm GMT

64 mins Adebayor takes a long ball down on his chest and turns before walloping a shot against Sagna. The ball goes back to Bentaleb who sends the ball into the box. His crossed is aimed to Adebayor and he climbs all over Koscielny before sending his effort just wide of the post.

5.19pm GMT

62 mins If only Spurs had someone who could score on a regular basis, eh? Some chap scored twice for Toronto the other night. Think his name was Defoe, or something like that. They should have a look at him. It’s only the MLS but still, he could be good.

5.16pm GMT

59 mins Townsend goes down inches inside the box. The fans want a penalty. Mike Dean tells them they are more likely to find out that Santa is real than see him award a penalty for that.

5.14pm GMT

57 mins A corner to Arsenal after a stern challenge on Podolski by Kaboul. It looks like it is going to drop for Giroud, who is readying himself for a volley, but Spurs clear the danger.

5.12pm GMT

55 mins Tottenham are on the constant attack now. Given how poor their defence is, maybe this is a good tactic from Tactics Tim. Just now, a dangerous ball is swung in from the right and looks to be heading for the head of an unmarked Adebayor only for Mertesacker to nip in in front of him and clear the danger.

Updated at 5.14pm GMT

5.09pm GMT

53 mins Arsenal leave players up field after a Rosicky counterattack and that gives Adebayor time and space to gallop at the enemy defence. He sends the ball out to Townsend on the right who zips a dangerous ball across the face of the Arsenal goal. No one in a Spurs shirt is there to turn it home however.

5.07pm GMT

50 mins That really should have been 1-1.

5.07pm GMT

48 mins Oh Spurs! You’ve just given up not one but two golden opportunities to score. The first one saw Szczesny drop Naughton’s cross allowing Chadli to pick up the loose ball. He dallied too long though and Sagna got back to clear it. Then, Szczesny dropped another Naughton cross allowing Chadli on to it once again but Koscielny was there to block the ball on the line.

Updated at 5.10pm GMT

5.03pm GMT

46 mins No changes to tell you about just yet. Arsenal get an early attack via Oxlade-Chamberlain on the left (after a cross-field pass from Giroud) but Naughton sees to it and it comes to nothing.

Updated at 5.07pm GMT

5.01pm GMT

45 mins We are back. What a strange first half that was, huh? Tottenham ended up having much more of the ball but Arsenal ended up having much more of the better chances on goal. A few of you have very kindly emailed in and pointed out that Rosicky might just have scored a better goal than the one he bagged today. See below for further details.

4.47pm GMT

Half-time: Tottenham 0-1 Arsenal

45 mins Another free-kick to Spurs and another yellow card to Arsenal. Gibbs is the recipient of this one after his wild lunge on Townsend. Said free-kick is wide on the right and lobbed into the box but Arsenal clear it easily enough. That’s all for now. Back in a few minutes.

42 mins Meanwhile, down the other end Oxlade-Chamberlain has just blasted one over the bar. His shots are getting further and further away from the goal.

4.40pm GMT

40 mins A poor pass in-field from Gibbs is intercepted by Eriksen. He sends Chadli scuttling free but his effort on goal – despite having plenty of time and space – is well, well wide.

Updated at 4.41pm GMT

4.39pm GMT

37 mins Tottenham switch the ball from left to right via a number of short passes and then do the same working it back to the right. Sandro (I think) breaks the wing but a perfectly executed tackle on the edge of the box ends the attack.

4.35pm GMT

34 mins The last few minutes have been all about Tottenham. They have attacked and pressed with verve, not giving Arsenal time to settle on the ball. All they are lacking is some composure when they get closer to goal.

4.33pm GMT

33 mins Rosicky has his Achilles raked by Chadli. The Spurs man goes in the naughty book.

4.31pm GMT

31 mins “I’m confused” says Kevin Lee. “Isn’t a high defensive line the strategy that got AVB fired in the first place?”

4.31pm GMT

29 mins Meanwhile, down the other end , Tottenham have a free-kick after Podolski takes down Chadli near the right-hand corner of the Arsenal box. Eriksen takes and tries to swipe it into the far corner of the net. He fails to ruffle a hair on Szczesny’s head.

Updated at 4.55pm GMT

4.28pm GMT

27 mins The Spurs high-line gives Podolski plenty of space to chase the ball down the right. Near the end line, he drags the ball back for Rosicky, on the edge of the box. He misses it but Oxlade-Chamberlain is there to take the shot. His effort takes a deflection and goes wide for a corner. Arsenal do nothing with it.

4.26pm GMT

25mins A long ball over the ball has Adebayor turning, under pressure from Mertesacker, and hooking the ball just over Szczesny’s bar. It was a decent effort from a tight angle but it wouldn’t have counted as the forward was deemed offside.

20 mins Arsenal are back to piggying in the middle. Meanwhile, D McCusker has a (topical) response to Duncan Smith.

It’s no surprise to find the work and pension minister at a football match reading a financial report. After all it’s better than actually watching that game that the unemployed like.

Updated at 4.21pm GMT

4.19pm GMT

17 mins Sherwood flung his coat to the ground after Oxlade-Chamberlain’s miss. Podolski was just as furious as he was in space to Oxlade-Chamberlain’s left.

4.17pm GMT

15 mins Lloris boots the ball down field and it pings around the Arsenal area for a moment or two before they can take control of it. They pass their way forward and, all of sudden, the aforementioned Tottenham high line is totally caught as Oxlade-Chamberlain is sent through in acres of space. He is one-on-one with Lloris with the Spurs defence nowhere to be seen. Put the ball either side of the keeper and its a goal. But he tries to be cute and chip Lloris and the ball goes horribly wide.

Updated at 4.54pm GMT

4.14pm GMT

13 mins Arsenal have been playing piggy in the middle for the last few moments. Spurs are finding it hard to get their foot on the ball. Spurs, by the way, are defending very high, given Arsenal’s pace, that could be a dangerous move.

4.12pm GMT

11 mins You never know what you are going to get from Adebayor. Will it be the uninterested teenager who sulks and skulks his way around the pitch? Or will it the man mountain who looks strong and dangerous and deadly whenever he gets on the ball? So far it has certainly been more of the later which can only give Spurs fans some hope after that early setback.

Updated at 4.19pm GMT

4.09pm GMT

9 mins More on these Tottenham protests, this time from Duncan Smith:

As a devout Evertonian, the running of Tottenham has always been a source of envy. I’ve compared accounts between the two clubs and the huge gulf in turnover seems to be in savvy investment returns as well as corporate stuff including sponsorships. It takes capital to produce the returns, but spurs generate that extra finance. To protest against such an astute businessman is biting the hand that feeds you epitomized.

4.07pm GMT

7 mins Spurs get a free-kick a fair distance out on their left-hand side. Eriksen floats it to the back post where it meets the head of Kaboul. He sends it back across the goal but play is halted when Adebayor is penalised for some foul play.

Updated at 4.08pm GMT

4.06pm GMT

6 mins “Afternoon Ian,” says Simon McMahon. “Even the Tottenham protestors are a bunch of amateurs. The ‘Levy Out’ sign on the right has made the classic error of starting too big and not leaving enough space for the final letter. Symptomatic of the general malaise within the club at the moment I think.”

4.05pm GMT

5 mins This.

01:12 - Tomas Rosicky's goal is the fastest ever scored by Arsenal against Tottenham in the Premier League. Rapid.

Rosicky will never hit a better goal than this. Tottenham had started by exerting some early pressure on the Arsenal defence. The back four coped with that and Rosicky was sent scurrying down the right hand side in some amount of space. He played the ball into the feet of Oxlade-Chamberlain who swiftly sent the ball back to him. On the edge of the box, Rosicky drilled the ball past Lloris and into the far top corner of the net.

GOAL! Tottenham 0-1 Arsenal (Rosicky)

1 min Both sides are in their home shirts but only one gets to do kick-off. That’s Spurs. They start off playing from right to left.

Updated at 4.52pm GMT

3.59pm GMT

Adebayor has just massaged his own head.

3.58pm GMT

Handshakes and hugs have been exchanged and the parts either side of the face below the eyes have been kissed. With all that jazz out of the way the players have made their way into the pitch. Off go the training tops, up go the legs for some final stretches and out goes the chewing gum. We are almost ready to go in the North London derby. Anyone else out there by the way?

A symbol of soft-pedalled optimism in a frantic season, Eriksen produced another persuasive performance of sideways-shunted creativity from his position on the left of midfield. Spurs host Arsenal in the Premier League on Sunday afternoon with their season now apparently in the balance and a manager in a state of potentially terminal funk. If there is a note of positivity it is surely here. Never mind the bluster. Where there is Eriksen there is – quietly, methodically – hope.

Continued here. And just to show that we are not biased, here is some pre-match reading on how after a nine-year drought the club’s French manager is looking forward to spending money and winning trophies again. Enjoy.

The scale of Arsène Wenger‘s achievement when he reaches 1,000 matches as the manager of Arsenal next Saturday at Chelsea, having endured for almost 18 years at Highbury, places him among the greats. The obvious comparison, like Sir Alex Ferguson’s with the former era-defining Manchester United manager Sir Matt Busby, is with Herbert Chapman, who championed Arsenal during a transformational time for the club and football itself.

Wenger has without question done something similar, becoming Arsenal’s first manager from overseas when he took over from Bruce Rioch, who had done well at Bolton but was deemed inadequate for the Gunners’ new Premier League and European future. Wenger pioneered and embodies not only the more cerebral football revolution that has taken place, the famous introduction of proper nutrition and the sparkling passing style that buried sneers of “boring Arsenal” but also the club’s institutional change, from homely Highbury to the 60,000-seat stadium named after the United Arab Emirates’ state airline.

Team news!

It’s what you have been waiting for all day. For the home side, Kyle Walker and Sandro were both doubtful after coming off injured against Benfica during the week. The Brazilian one of those has managed to make it back to fitness on time but the English one hasn’t. Tactics Tim, meanwhile, has opted to relegate Kane and Soldado to the bench and go with just the one man up front. As for the away side, given the injuries they are are currently hampered by, Wenger has picked a fairly to-be-expected side (although it is nice to see Podolski get a run out, feels like he has been under used by the Arsenal manager). As for their bench, there is no Kim Källström but there is a Monreal, who has finally got over his foot problem. Those teams in full are:

Good afternoon world!

“Hope,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche, “is in truth the worst of all evils, because it protracts the torment of man.” Brian Simpson put it another way: “It’s not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand.” Hope, torment and despair: the three words that pretty much sum up the season so far for north London’s troubled titans. And since we are going to spend this preamble talking about them and their woes, you could also throw in injuries, mismanagement and mystifying decisions with that lot too.

We begin with Arsenal. Once the initial shock of that opening day defeat to Aston Villa was swallowed, the hope kicked in. Arsenal did not lose in the Premier League until November and they played with the sort of style, panache and precision that many teams could not cope with. Mesut Özil made an immediate impact but even he looked like Junichi Inamoto next to Patrick Vieira when compared to how Aaron Ramsey was playing. The Welshman was winning tackles, zooming up and down the pitch and scoring goals as if a move to Real Madrid depended on it. He was a candidate for player of the year. Arsène Wenger was smiling a proper smile too, not the one he puts on when decisions go against his side. They were seven points clear at the top. It looked like those nine barren years would be over.

And then along came the winter of their discontent. It soon became obvious that while the squad was good enough to cope against the lesser sides of the Premier League, they looked exhausted of both energy and ideas against the teams around them, the teams they needed to take points of if they wanted to claim the title. They threw away a late lead against Everton at home just before they were hammered away to Manchester City. (On the subject of winning points against the top-half sides, Chelsea have taken 34; Manchester City have taken 28; Arsenal have taken 19.) Come the New Year, come the exhaustion, come the injuries, come another trouncing and come the inconsistencies. From being seven points ahead, they are now seven behind. They won’t win it from here.

That was the despair and the torment and in between all that came the mismanagement and mystifying decisions. Why was Özil, who has looked more tired than the average insomniac for quite some time now, not given a winter break? Why are Arsenal so much more susceptible to injuries than any other side in the Premier League? What is that they are doing on the training ground that there are so many important players out at such a important time in the season? And this is not new thing for the Gunners, so why hasn’t it changed? Why wasn’t there investment made in the January transfer window? Why wasn’t a forward bought? Why was a player with a back injury, that Arsène Wenger admitted to knowing about, brought in? Mystifying does not do it all justice.

As for Tottenham. Last summer, those Gareth Bale millions came rolling in and soon went rolling back out. Every week, it seemed, the club’s transfer record had a chainsaw taken to it and a new player, with a Colgate smile and perfectly misplaced hair, was lining up to have their photo taken in the sunshine. They had a young, go-getting manager at the helm too with a proven track record. OK, his time at Chelsea was not what it was supposed to be (though he cannot take all the blame for that) and he would not have Bale to bail him out but this still looked like a side and club that had the necessary components to finally be beckoned back into the top four spots.

Like Arsenal, they made it to mid November with just four defeats in all competitions and like Arsenal they suffered a six-goal mauling at the Etihad. No shame in that, every team is allowed an off-day and stopping Manchester City going forward is often like trying to stop a tsunami with a bucket with no bottom. Spurs may have been ninth at that stage in the season but hope was still alive and kicking. The Premier League table was tighter than a pair of 70s soccer shorts and they were just two points off fourth and four points off second. They responded well to the Manchester mauling, winning four of their next five games. Then came the defeat to Liverpool. And then came the goodbyes to hope and the goodbyes to AVB.

Of course, a finger must be pointed in the direction of the Portuguese for foolishly isolating Emmanuel Adebayor when it was patently clear that with Roberto Soldado misfiring, Spurs were short of men to stick the ball in the back of the net. But there are bigger fish to fry than him. Why did Daniel Levy sack him so quickly? And why did Levy replace him with a manager who has no proven Premier League or European football experience and who, as expected, has been continually out thought by the better managers from this league and ones further afield? And since he took over, have Spurs just given up on practising how to defend from set-pieces and/or talk tactics? Agreed, you can often run the risk of stifling players with too much talk but there at least needs to be some chat and some direction, right? Spurs are now effectively out of Europe and effectively out of the running for Champions League spots. Mystifying does not etc, etc, etc.

So it’s been a season in the league that began with hope before morphing into torment and then into despair for these two clubs. Of course, there is only one more thing that could make it worse and we all know what that is, right? Team news is on its way.